In a footnote on page 1 and again on page 8 of its third quarter earnings release The Walt Disney Company makes note of a $177 million charge affecting its earnings. That charge comes from ABC News settling a defamation lawsuit over its reporting of so-called pink slime. Beef Products Inc. (BPI) sued ABC News and correspondent Jim Avila for $1.9 billion dollars over what it claimed were “false and misleading and defamatory” statements about its product known as Lean Finely Textured Beef. After 5 years of pre-trial, the case went before a South Dakota judge in early June. It...

To get protesters to leave the Local Butcher Shop alone, the Berkeley meat market’s owners agreed to promote an animal rights message. Now, in the upper left corner of one of the store’s front windows, there’s a 15-inch-by-15-inch sign. In white letters on a black background, it reads: “Attention: Animals’ lives are their right. Killing them is violent and unjust, no matter how it’s done.” In exchange for putting up the sign, Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, agreed to protest at the store only twice a year.

During his Senate hearing to be confirmed as ambassador to China, then-Gov. Terry Branstad said he would prefer to serve Iowa beef — not cuts from Australia — at the U.S. Embassy there. He won’t get that wish yet, but the prime rib he slices into Friday when joined in Beijing by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Chinese government officials to ceremonially mark the return of U.S. beef to China after a 14-year ban will be from closer to home — Nebraska. Branstad: Work to open Chinese market to U.S. beef exports Trump calls for rural internet...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the immediate suspension of fresh beef imports from the South American country on Thursday after inspections uncovered public health concerns, unsanitary conditions and animal health issues. The agency said the ban will remain in place until Brazil "takes corrective action." Brazil is the fifth biggest supplier of beef to the U.S., ranking behind only Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. It has sent nearly 50 million pounds of beef to the U.S. so far this year. "Although international trade is an important part of what we do at USDA, and Brazil has long been...

(ELK POINT, S.D.) In this rural outpost of just over 1,900 residents, a local college student has become a courtroom sketch artist, trailers on Main Street are ersatz offices for a major law firm and members of an agricultural youth club are puzzled by a new metal detector at the local courthouse. The changes are part of Elk Point's selection as site of a multibillion-dollar defamation case pitting ABC News against South Dakota-meat processor, Beef Products Inc. The company contends that ABC and reporter Jim Avila defamed it by referring to its signature product as "pink slime" in 2012 broadcasts....

If this Silicon Valley food-tech startup has its way, its lab-grown meat—which includes chicken, duck and beef—will be on a supermarket shelf near you within the next five years. “[We’re] trying to put products on the shelves by 2021/2022,” Uma Valeti, Memphis Meats co-founder and CEO, tells FOX Business. In March, the company announced that it created the “world’s first chicken strip from animal cells,” following their animal-free meatball debut in 2016. Lab-grown beef was previously developed in 2012 by a group of Dutch scientists. “Essentially, we are taking a number of animal cells, giving them clean and nutritious food...

Report states that China will offer two small economic concessions to President Donald Trump’s administration in the hope of maintaining friendly relations with the United States. From the Financial Times: China will offer the Trump administration better market access for financial sector investments and US beef exports to help avert a trade war, according to Chinese and US officials involved in talks between the two governments.

NEW YORK - Animal lovers will pay their respects to the bull that ran away from a Queens slaughterhouse and died Tuesday. A vigil is being held Wednesday night at the Aziz slaughterhouse on Beaver Road in Jamaica, where the bull escaped from. Bull Who Escaped from Queens Slaughterhouse Has Died Officers chased the bull through the streets for hours, shooting him with tranquilizers. He was eventually cornered at 158th street and 116th Avenue, nearly two miles away. The bull died while on its way to the Animal Care and Control Center in East New York, Brooklyn. The vigil begins...

(dpa) - There was once a Hereford cow that ate "100 per cent grass" in the green, green meadows of Ireland. Its demise was painless. Its meat was dry-aged for three weeks to give it lots of flavour. You can also check every detail of its history by using a smartphone to scan the QR codes affixed to its package at the newly opened Meat Market store, a top-tier meat emporium in Hamburg, Germany. And it's eye-poppingly expensive. "Lots of people have had enough with the mistreatment of livestock and scandals in the meat industry, like when horsemeat is passed...

<p>The Indiana Board of Animal Health has issued an advisory after livestock on a southern Indiana beef cattle farm was infected with anthrax.</p>
<p>A veterinarian collected tissue samples for laboratory testing after the animal died unexpectedly. Only a single, mixed-breed bull died; other animals in the herd have not shown signs of infection.</p>

McDonald’s is testing the use of fresh, never frozen beef for its Quarter Pounder hamburgers. The fast food giant says the tests are being carried out in 75 of its restaurants in the Tulsa, Oklahoma-area. It says Quarter Pounders in the restaurants will be made with fresh beef that’s cooked when ordered. …

When we had our first home and my husband and I began cooking together, we acquired a copy of Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ from a book club. Being ignorantly ambitious, we decided to first try Boeuf Bourguignon.We must have done a lot wrong because in the end, a can of Dinty Moore with a splash of cheap red would have been superior to our sad product; but we learned our lesson, and realized that we needed to know a lot more about cooking before attempting something like that. We never tried that particular dish again, until...

The Swedish government is taking an extremely bizarre commitment to fighting climate change by spending large sums of taxpayer money to develop 'meat' made from mealworms and crickets. Vinnova, the Swedish government agency that distributes money for research and development, is spending some 2.7 billion kronor ($261 million) to replace conventional meat with 'climate-friendly' insect 'meat' and other strange alternatives. Yum… Breitbart News reports: Green activists and the United Nations are behind such political initiatives as 'Meat Free Mondays' — a gateway to full vegetarianism — which are based on the premise that meat consumption is driving man-made climate change....

Returning to this quote from Kevin Williamson's well-known article from National Review: The manufacturing numbers -- and the entire gloriously complex tale of globalization -- go in fits and starts: a little improvement here, a little improvement there, and a radically better world in raw material terms (and let's not sniff at those) every couple of decades. Go back and read the novels of the 1980s or watch The Brady Bunch... ...the cost of butter was not a major financial concern for well-to-do families in the 1980s, or now. But another of Williamson's points needs to be addressed: the...

<p>Stand away from the grill, chefs say, and use a skillet. ‘Making a medium-rare burger is actually a good test of a young chef’s abilities.’</p>
<p>The ingredients are simple—salt, pepper, ground meat and the inalienable belief that any American can make a decent hamburger.</p>

The nation's net farm income is the lowest since 2002, and with another year of low commodity prices, demand for agriculture loans is surging as farmers struggle to make ends meet. [...] Agricultural lenders say they are seeing people who had operating loans requesting larger ones, and some who had operated with cash are borrowing money. But it's unlikely the current run on loans will be anything like the farm credit crisis of the 1980s, when those who survived the significant year-to-year losses were without large debts to repay. ...

WASHINGTON â€” Nearly 168,000 pounds of ground beef is being recalled due to potential E. coli contamination. Federal food safety inspectors found the bacteria in meat that was packaged by All American Meats in Omaha, Neb., prompting regulators to issue a recall on Sunday for a massive batch of the companyâ€™s products that may also be affected. The ground beef items were produced on Oct. 16, 2015. The following products are subject to recall: 80-lb. (approximate weight) boxes of â€śGround Beef 80% Lean 20% Fat (Fine Grind)â€ť with Sell By Date 11-03-2015 and case code 62100. 80-lb. (approximate weight) boxes...

Japanese beef imports to drop further than thought Japan, the world's largest importer of US beef, will see imports shrink further than previously expected, as exportable supplies of the meat tighten. The US Department of Agriculture bureau in Tokyo forecast Japanese beef imports falling to a five-year low of 727,000 tonnes this year, 13,000 tonnes below the department's official forecast. The forecast came despite an increased forecast for consumption, of 1.24m tonnes, narrowly higher year on year. However, the extra consumption will be met from stocks rather than imports, which will drop for a second successive year, as exportable supplies...

Store-bought ground beef often contains a variety of bacteria that can make humans sick and is resistant to the drugs used to treat it, according to new data from Consumer Reports. While most bacteria in meat can be killed when cooked correctly, many Americans prefer to eat their meat rare, putting them at a greater risk for illness—especially when the meat comes from conventionally raised cows, which are treated with antibiotics and hormones, according to a new Consumer Reports study. The study found that nearly 20% of ground beef in the U.S. tested from conventionally raised cows had bacteria resistant...